


Ministrations

by SadArticle



Category: The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25934278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadArticle/pseuds/SadArticle
Summary: Just a little harmless fluff, possibly edging towards smut. Sir Percy returns home to his lady, bruised but far from broken, and Marguerite is on hand to tend to his injuries.
Relationships: Marguerite Blakeney/Percy Blakeney
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Ministrations

Marguerite waited until Percy’s valet, gliding out of the dressing room in his usual fluid stride, had left his master before she dashed along the landing to her husband. She imagined she could still smell the older man’s unobtrusive, clean scent in his wake, so neatly did she time her entrance with Frank’s departure. Pausing at the door, she watched her husband trying to duck out of his shirt, sucking in air through his teeth as yet another wound was aggravated. He was favouring one arm, slipping it gingerly out of the cuff that bound it, and pulling the body of the shirt wide of his shoulder as he eased himself free bit by bit. A violent bruise, still purple and sore at its centre with fading shades of green and yellow rippling outwards, was revealed on his ribcage as he raised the shirt. Marguerite closed her eyes in a nervous grimace.

‘Tis only a motley assortment of colours now, m’dear,’ he said, having heard her gasp behind him. ‘It really doesn’t hurt any longer.’

‘And your arm?’ she asked, stepping into the room.

‘Yes, well, that does hurt,’ he laughed. ‘I landed on it, and I am no featherweight.’ He crooked the arm towards her, revealing further dark bruising along the underside of his forearm that was clashing with the red raw scrape on his elbow.

‘Percy …’ Marguerite sighed, holding her fingertips as close to the damage as she dare, feeling the heat even without touching his skin.

He rolled the shirt over his head and down the other arm with ease, tossing the linen behind him. ‘Come here, for a very awkward embrace,’ he smiled, pulling her in towards him. She slipped close, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek to his bare chest. He held her tightly about the shoulders with his good arm, leaving the other hanging free of his body and hers.

‘What was it this time?’ she asked, leaning back to look at him.

‘A rather hasty and unplanned descent from a hay cart,’ came his droll reply.

‘Clumsy!’

‘It was the preferred choice to the shot flying overhead at the time,’ he told her, regretting his casual tone when her eyes widened in alarm. ‘La! don’t think about it, m’dear, it’s past now.’

‘Percy,’ she spoke sharply, drawing away from him but reaching for his hand, ‘please don’t always do this to me! You come home to me, injured, exhausted, sometimes only barely escaping with your life, and you talk as if it is nothing! As if you really had been hunting or fishing, and were telling me of game killed in a field or fish caught in a net!’

He smiled, despite her desperate plea and her frightened gaze. ‘But isn’t it? Only rather it’s ‘soldiers trussed like turkeys’, and …’ Her hand started to tremble in his grasp. ‘Margot, don’t! Don’t! How heartless I am, forgive me,’ he breathed into her hair as he drew her into his embrace once more. A tear spilled onto his skin, and she followed its progress from the corner of her eye.

‘It is hard for me to see how close to danger you have been, by the bruises and the cuts and the pains that I find all over your body,’ she told him softly, calmly. ‘They all tell a story apart from the heroic tales that pass from ear to ear amongst the _ton_ , and that is the truth that you are only human.’

‘It is the human in me that is the trouble, I fear,’ he said, swaying with her in his arms. ‘For it is my own humanity that reaches out to all the other poor wretches: the weaker, less resilient victims who would fall prey to the greed and might of others, but for those willing to stand in the path of the giant and defend whomever it would crush.’ 

Marguerite said nothing, holding onto her husband as if his only touch made him real, her fingers vaguely stroking the hollow of his spine just above the waistband of his breeches.

‘And what am I to do?’ she asked.

‘Only that which you do already,’ he told her, his voice low and heavy. ‘Be the answer to my prayers: that I should always meet with your beauty and your love when I come home. Heavens knows that the thought of both is what keeps me going, in the face of such cruelty and poverty abroad.’

When she remained silent, Percy slowly pulled away from her. She looked up at him in surprise, her arms still locked behind his back.

‘Dear old Frank is off supervising the preparation of a very hot, very deep bath,’ he smiled, delicately using his injured arm to reach out and cup her chin, ‘of which I am sorely in need – in both senses of the word!’

She broke her hold, running her fingertips lightly down his chest, her nails raking through the fair hair. ‘Then I shall count it as my wifely duty to help you,’ she smiled, trying to lower her face against his tender touch.

‘I had considered the possibility,’ he whispered, leaning in to kiss her.

‘How I have longed for a decent bath!’ Percy sighed, sinking down against the linen that covered the metal of the tub. He stretched, reaching out to prop himself up against the rim, and then winced before carefully repositioning the bruised flesh of his left forearm.

Marguerite, kneeling on a rolled-up towel beside the bath, smiled indulgently at his delight in being pampered. She reached over his fragile arm to swirl a flannel about in the steaming water, her eyes flitting over the rest of his strong, disciplined body as she soaked the material: bar a few cuts and scrapes, it seemed that the damage to his chest and arm totalled the full extent of his injuries this time around.

‘It is fortunate that clothes cover your skin, and do not have to suit its shade,’ she teased, lightly running the back of her hand over his ribs; ‘your tailor would be at a loss with this riot of colour.’

Percy looked at her, and then glanced down at his chest. ‘I should have to dress like my amiable friend Monsieur Chambertin, in that case – black would drown out a rainbow of hues.’

‘Please do not mention that man,’ she sighed.

‘Not a pleasant subject, I agree,’ he murmured, closing his eyes again.

Marguerite listlessly ran the water-logged flannel down Percy’s raised thigh, her thoughts once again distracted by the terrors of France and the danger it meant to her husband.

‘Margot?’ he prompted, her silence heavy in the air.

She submerged the cloth again, smoothing it over the tight muscles of his stomach, until he caught her wrist in his good hand, forcing her to meet his gaze.

‘I feel terrible that I should behave like this with you, Percy,’ she confessed, ‘but sometimes it is not so easy to dispel my fears and forget that soon you will go back there again.’

He pushed himself upright and moved to the side of the bath, twining his good arm over hers. Their faces were close, and she could feel the heat of his arm and the moisture between his skin and hers.

‘Then don’t think of it,’ he mouthed, lifting her chin with the tips of his fingers. ‘Do as I do, and only look forward to our reunion.’

‘I always plan ahead,’ Marguerite whispered back, a smile teasing at one corner of her mouth. ‘And then I just hope that the flesh will be as willing as the spirit.’ She snaked her free arm down into the tub and lightly prodded his tender muscles, only to find herself trapped by her husband’s sharp reflexes an instant afterwards: he quickly caught and held both her wrists, twitching with pain despite himself when he had to stretch out his swollen elbow, and drew her arms over the edge of the tub.

‘Percy, _non_!’ she shrieked, laughing as she was forced to rise up onto her knees and lean over the water. ‘I am not getting wet, this is a new gown!’

‘I’ll buy you three more in its place,’ he offered reasonably.

‘You will get water everywhere!’

‘It is a bathroom after all,’ came another placid rejoinder.

Marguerite held her thighs rigid against the metal side of the bath, pulling backwards against his grip on her wrists. ‘We shall be a laughing stock, or worse, in that case – do you want the entire household to hear?’

‘It is you making the racket, m’dear –’

‘ _Racket_?’ she echoed shrilly, pausing to look suitably offended in the midst of her struggle.

‘And you are rather hurting my arm,’ he added.

Marguerite quickly leaned forward again, almost draping herself over the rim. ‘Oh, my love, forgive me, I forgot –’ Too late did she realise her mistake, for, with a twitch of his eyebrows and a flash of a smile, Percy snaked his good arm about her waist and raised her over the rim; the water, rising like a canal lock, flooded across her lap and then cascaded over the edge. Marguerite watched her gown slowly growing darker, the mark of the tide flowing against gravity towards her slippered feet, until the warm water finally penetrated through layers of petticoat to sit uncomfortably against her skin.

Despite her predicament, she gave into laughter, sinking further into the tub and leaning her head back against the rim. As throaty hilarity dissolved into the silent trembling of her shoulders, Percy relaxed his hold on her and began carefully testing the muscles in his aching arm. He always succeeded in laughing or charming away any lingering fears she had for his safety, or the last traces of fleeting resentment that he could leave her as he did, but it was only a temporary victory; just as the guillotine had to be fed, so it was he must go on testing his wife’s selfless devotion and boundless love.

‘Imbécile,’ Marguerite giggled, flicking the water from her fingertips.

‘Oh, no – Percy!’ she started, trying to sit up straight. ‘Look at this!’

She cupped her hands together over her lap, filling the vessel with bathwater, and then raised her hands and let it drain through her fingers: a stream coloured dusky pink by the dye in her skirts poured out before his eyes.

‘I must tell the Prince about this,’ Percy announced thoughtfully. ‘I could start a whole new trend – ‘bathing à la –’’

‘Don’t say it!’ Marguerite warned, pushing a hand over his lips as she tried to keep her own mouth in a straight line. ‘And you will tell no-one of this!’

‘It would be ungentlemanly to brag, no matter the size of the catch,’ he acceded. ‘But I shall delight in recounting the success of this trip to Scotland!’


End file.
